Cairns Crocodiles 2025: Marketers talk tight budgets, podcasts and retail media

CAIRNS, AUSTRALIA — The country’s biggest ad industry event, Cairns Crocodiles, is billed as Cannes minus the yachts and draws 2,000 delegates a year. Last week, marketers zeroed in on how to make the most of tight budgets, with podcasts and retail media emerging as standout opportunities.

Here are the key takeaways from the tropics.

Don’t get carried away with creative

This is especially true for smaller brands with budgets to match.

What they said: “When you are in a smaller business, when you have a tighter budget, you will no doubt have to prove what you are doing works. … There is a tension between being able to do creative, fun stuff but also being able to deliver measurable outcomes as your business grows.” — Kate Jarvis, CMO, Latrobe Health Services

Why it matters: Smaller brands may not have the budget to compete with major players, but they can compete on strategy, targeting and efficiency. Creativity doesn’t need to be sacrificed; it just needs to be focused.

To that end, SMBs are increasingly turning to programmatic campaigns to compete for audience attention, not by outspending competitors, but by out-targeting and out-optimizing them.

Reach isn’t everything

You don’t need a massive audience; you need an engaged one — and few channels deliver that better than podcasts.

What they said: “You can’t always have [both] reach and engagement. … Qualitative success over quantitative success can be great with podcasts.” — Maddy Carty, podcast creator and host of Mads World

Why it matters: Podcast audiences are often far more engaged, loyal and trusting of the content they consume. Nearly 90% of podcast listeners say they’ve taken action after hearing a podcast ad, whether that’s visiting a website or making a purchase, according to recent research. Among listeners of niche shows, that figure climbs to 94%.

Which is all to say that focusing on engagement over exposure is often the smarter bet — and podcasts are uniquely positioned to deliver outcomes.

Retail media is rapidly evolving

But marketers shouldn’t let “perfect” get in the way of progress.

What they said: “We have to work in a transparent way. If we get access to our data right, [allow our agency partners] to be able to use our data to inform their wider media buy … and get clean rooms up and running, that agency-retail media network partnership will really come together nicely.” — Hayley Robinson, head of sales, MixIn Retail Media, Endeavour

Why it matters: Retail media is still maturing, with ongoing challenges around data standardization and measurement. But waiting for perfection means risking missed opportunities — especially as more consumers make purchase decisions in digital retail environments.

The majority of marketers don’t need much convincing of retail media’s vast potential, according to a recent survey.

Nearly two-thirds of marketers increased their retail media investment in 2024. In addition, 81% of marketers surveyed last year considered retail media to be very or extremely important to their marketing strategies, and 77% said retail media is delivering good or excellent results.

Speaking at the event, Barry McGhee, general manager of oOh!media’s retail media arm, reo, summed it up: “Don’t let perfection get in the way of good.”